Will There Be An Iraq/Afghanistan War Memorial?

U.S. Marines depart a checkpoint and patrol back to Forward Operating Base Geronimo, Afghanistan, May 30, 2010. The Marines are assigned to Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mark Fayloga

What Will Our Iraq War Memorial Look Like? -- Washington Post

I recently came across an old editorial about American soldiers caught in a seemingly unending war abroad. “Had there been any honorable way of retreat open to us,” the piece argued, “we should have availed ourselves of it as soon as the facts of the situation became apparent. But as there was no such means of escape, we stayed there, and our tenure has been very costly in life and money.”

So wrote the editors of The Washington Post, not about the war in Iraq or Afghanistan or even Vietnam, but about the U.S. occupation of the Philippines more than a century ago. When the editorial appeared in 1906, the occupation had been dragging on for almost eight years since the United States declared victory over Spain in the war of 1898. Eventually 5,000 U.S. soldiers (and at least 250,000 Filipinos) died in a long and brutal counterinsurgency campaign.

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My Comment: Millions of images and photos have been taken in Iraq and Afghanistan .... but the above photo captures for me what the war has been all about, and one in which I hope that any future memorial will incorporate.